US-Renews Civil War in Afghanistan qua War on Terrorism?

Hours after the Taliban on Tuesday denied Osama bin Laden's involvement
(which is still far from certain and perhaps irrelevant), the NYT reported
that a Taliban munitions dump was attacked at about 2:20 a.m., apparently by
the United Front, the faction opposed to the Taliban and supported by the
US.  (Well, in fact the Bush Administration also supports the Taliban,
recently giving $47 million to the government, allegedly for joining the war
on drugs, as announced last Thursday and reported in the LA Times.  (For a
copy of the article, go to:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n922/a09.html).

Last night, NPR news interviewed a US official who said that the attack on
the Taliban on Tuesday did not involve US forces.  The official chose his
words carefully.  He did not say that the US was not involved.  Further, the
official explained that the US would no longer negotiate with the Taliban
for bin Laden's surrender, but now demands it unconditionally -- the "or
else" was implied.  If the US does launch a major attack on the Taliban, one
can hardly doubt that far fewer Americans would complain compared to those
who opposed the 47 days of bombing of Yugoslavia during Clinton's reign.  If
the US does openly strike the Taliban, it wouldn't be the first retaliatory
attack.  As the NYT article noted above recounts, after Osama bin Laden was
suspected of masterminding the attacks against United States Embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, the US launched more than 70 Tomahawk
cruise missiles against guerrilla training camps near Afghanistan's border
with Pakistan
(http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/international/12AFGH.html?searchpv=past7d
ays).  They obviously did not hit bin Laden.  How many innocents were
killed?  Following this, the US imposed very harsh sanctions on Afghanistan.
So it may be that from Afghanistan's view (assuming bin Laden's involvement)
that Tuesday's horrific attack on Americans was (in part) a retaliatory
attack on the US for the 1998 Tomahawk attack and for the sanctions.  Of
course, whoever did perpetrate the attack on Tuesday is probably more
fundamentally opposed to "US geopolitical ambitions," current positions,
client states, etc., as Steve Sherman has pointed out in a recent post to
WSN.

I suspect that the $47 million gift to Afghanistan announced a week ago was
given in exchange for bin Laden's surrender.  However, in view of the
hardened US stance toward the Taliban following the attack on Tuesday, as
well as the pull-out of Americans and other citizens from Afghanistan
starting yesterday, it may be that the US gave the Afghanistan UF a green
light to attack the Taliban to demonstrate the US resolve about bin Laden's
extrication.  And if bin Laden is released, I doubt that will be the end of
it.  In the name of fighting world terrorism, the US may step up military
aid to the UF to begin the take over of Kabul and destruction of the
Taliban, re-igniting the civil war and regional instability.  Let's see what
happens over the next year or so.

The new War on Terrorism, as with previous destabilizing "actions" by the US
over the last 20 years which have created regional instability, may continue
to drive world capital liquidity to the (formerly) safe-haven of US markets,
which came under physical attack on Tuesday after the money flows
petered-out last year.  But first and foremost, US leaders may perceive that
the War on Terrorism is necessary to protect and renew the US's world
financial-racket in order to once again make the US the apparent "safe
shore" for world liquidity.  However, this may not succeed at all, for when
Japan finishes de-industrializing -- and Japanese leaders seem to have
lately gained the political power and will to do so -- the ongoing shift in
the center of the world-economy from the US to East Asia will become more
clear and the money will likely flow once again to the capital markets of
Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Shanghai rather than primarily to the US.

Elson Boles, Ph.D.
Dept. of Sociology
Saginaw Valley State University